


dashed to pieces

by spookyleo



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: -Ish, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fluff, Happy Ending, Inception Big Bang 2020, Love Letters, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyleo/pseuds/spookyleo
Summary: Over the course of Eames’ twenty-seven years on Earth, one of the things that he had found that seemed to be a pressing, life-threatening, reoccurring danger was the fact that things tended to go well until they didn’t.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26
Collections: Inception Big Bang 2020





	dashed to pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, happy inceptiversary! This was written for the 2020 Inception Big Bang. First and foremost, therefore, I have to thank Juliane/dreaminghigher for her amazing work modding this year. We all bow down to you!  
> I also want to thank the amazing people I got to work with. The talented Flosculatory made graphics for this fic, which I was overcome with excitement for. (This will be linked in due course and I do hope you check it out, as her visuals were perfect!). I also got to make art for Anab's fic! Ann and me quickly became close friends and I can't thank her enough. Finally, I want to thank Nor for being a great beta, and for gawping at my Britishisms!   
> Hope you enjoy!

_All night I stretched my arms across him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing with all my skin and bone **Please keep him safe. Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed to pieces.**_ – Saying Your Names, Richard Siken

***

Out of all places Eames expected to see the man who changed his life – the ex-love of his life, the most beautiful man on the planet, the man who stole his heart, etcetera – a bank in Paris was not the place Eames thought Arthur would finally enter his life again.

Especially when Eames was wearing a rubber mask and robbing the place with four of his sketchiest friends.

This was not the way Eames thought this morning would go.

“Everybody put your fucking hands up,” Eames heard Jude yell in French from across the lobby, and he tore his eyes from Arthur’s dark hair – shorter than he remembered, neatly styled.

This was supposed to be an in-and-out job, quick and efficient, except it couldn’t be, not now. There was no spark of recognition in Arthur’s eyes. Eames wondered if he should run. Ariadne was outside, the getaway car engine running. Hands on the wheel. She’d understand. She’d hit the acceleration pedal the second Eames said Arthur’s name.

But what sort of a coward would that make Eames?

“No fucking heroics, understand?” Eames barked out, thankful it didn’t catch in his throat alongside his heartbeat. He scanned the room evenly, knowing if he stuck to the plan – if everyone kept calm – no one, including Arthur, would get hurt. Arthur wouldn’t even know they’d been here.

The dozen other people in the lobby shared shocked glances, gasps and sobs, and Eames heard the glass at the teller’s office break as Tadashi thrust the barrel of his gun through it. They had made sure the glass wasn’t reinforced - this bank was undergoing renovation, and the security was much weaker for it. All the better for them.

“Put the money in the bag,” Tyler demanded from beside Tadashi, and Eames could picture the way the teller would be shaking. He looked over to Jude, holding their gun on the other side of the lobby, and nodded at them. This was going well, he told himself.

And then it wasn’t.

_When Eames first met Arthur, he was shy. His hair fell, floppy, over downcast eyes, long fingers plucking at the hem of olive-green cargo trousers – a modern day Caravaggio painting, Bacchic and beautiful. Eames first saw him from the stage, sipping a cider next to an artsy looking girl with a bob by the bar. Eames had tried not to forget the lyrics to his own songs as he felt those eyes heavy on him._

_Eames came off stage after singing the heart off his sleeve that night, and that shy boy had already left._

Now, Arthur didn’t seem so self-conscious.

“You can’t do this!” Eames heard from across the lobby, and it took a painful second to recognise the voice, because Eames had never heard Arthur speak French before.

All at once, Eames felt the blood drain from his face. He saw Jude move their gun before he heard anything else, and his breath caught behind his tongue, like metal, like iron. An ocean rushing behind his eardrums.

It was a decision he’d have to make right now or never, Eames decided. Fuck the plan. He felt the words fall out of his mouth before he was sure of them.

“Let me,” Eames said, and it didn’t feel like he was saying it. Didn’t feel like it was him moving towards Arthur, tightening his finger on the trigger of his gun. Watching as Arthur’s eyes got impossibly big, and as something twisted inside Eames, cold and aching.

He came back to himself with a lump in his throat, like waking from a dream. Close enough to Arthur that he could murmur something that wouldn’t be heard.

“What a way to greet an old friend,” Eames slipped back into English as he spoke, and Arthur froze.

“I’m sorry this is happening, darling,” Eames continued quietly, moved behind Arthur who gritted his teeth as Eames pushed the nose of his gun into the curve of his waist. “But Jude happens to be a great shot, and I’d rather not see you get kneecapped on our first reintroduction.”

Arthur stayed silent, violently still, and Eames watched Tyler and Tadashi take ugly sacks full of euro notes from the teller. Just like they’d done before, half a dozen other places all the same. This was just the same, Eames told himself, it had to be. Except something still twisted his innards, something inside begging him to throw the gun away, keep it away from Arthur and the way he stood, stiff, against the barrel of it. The only thing keeping them apart, like the seconds between Eames jumping the turnstile at Victoria Station and Arthur’s train leaving the platform, all that time ago in Manchester.

Tyler would give the signal to run, any moment now, and Eames would never see Arthur again. He could count down the seconds they had left. He could breathe in and try to catch an air of Arthur’s cologne.

“Café De La Roux,” Arthur muttered, and Eames steadied his breath. Chaos unfolded across the lobby as Tyler made the signal, but Eames hardly heard them. More like they were a film on in the background, Jude keeping their gun steady as they moved out of the bank in Eames’ peripheral vision and Tyler yelling something beneath his mask. Eames just focused on the dark of Arthur’s irises.

“Let’s go, dingus!” This voice was Tadashi, and it snapped Eames awake. He took the gun from Arthur’s back. His hand from Arthur’s shoulder. Started to run.

“Tomorrow. Midday,” Arthur called out, in French, and Eames tore his eyes away. Heard sirens start to blare. Slammed the car door as he got in. Watched Ariadne swallow as she hit the acceleration.

“What the fuck was that about, Eames?” Tyler sounded furious, pulling off his mask. Eames looked out through the back window as they slipped onto a backroad.

“Nothing,” Eames said it as smoothly as he could muster. “It was nothing.”

\----------

Eames was seated outside, in the courtyard, by 11:55am, back against the wall of the café so he could scan the area. Usually, a suit and sunglasses on a dull day like it was would be conspicuous, but Paris had that level of pretension that it was practically _à la mode_ , and maybe that was one of the things Eames liked about the place.

He sipped a cup of tea and people-watched, thought about how it was a useful thing to have picked up to pass the time back when his band were on tour and there wasn’t much to do. Remembered how he’d never gravitated to anyone as much as he had that first time he saw Arthur. How he had seen him again in a club later that night. There had been some sort of theme going on, and everyone around Eames had been dressed in bright neon clothes – orange leg warmers, green tutus. But not Arthur. Him and Mal – the girl from the bar that Eames had later learned the name of – had been laughing, dancing wordlessly and unabashedly to the 80’s pop pumping through the speakers. He remembered catching Arthur’s eye through the crowd, like tunnel vision, his heart stopping in his chest. Turning to leave, because gosh, it had been dreadfully warm, hadn’t it?

Eames had vowed to never feel as much of a coward as he did in that moment, and he didn’t care if that was unfair to his younger self, or the fact he was nineteen at the time. It didn’t matter.

“Hi,” Arthur said, and Eames looked up again. Arthur was stood there, long and beautiful against the blue-grey of the midday sky. He wore a suit, the shirt pressed and draped over his narrow frame, tucked into long, narrowing brown trousers under a camel coat. So far removed from the skater boy fashion of his youth, the tight t-shirts and tiny hooped earrings. It made sense, though. That same appeal of perfectly constructed presentation. The allure of knowing exactly how one would be interpreted. The made-up version of Arthur in Eames’ head would approve.

“Salmon looks horrible on you,” Arthur noted, taking off his coat and draping it over the chair opposite as Eames grinned.

“As lovely as ever, darling,” Eames said, and Arthur looked away as he sat down. There was something dark in his eyes, something unplaceable. 

“Don’t call me that,” Arthur said. Eames cleared his throat.

“I’ve missed you. Are you ordering anything?”

Eames took off his sunglasses, watched Arthur catch the eye of a waiter coming back into the café. The waiter knew Arthur by name, and Eames felt a pang in his stomach for all the sides of Arthur he must have missed since they parted ways. The depths of his character. The night they had first met, Eames had made up stories for Arthur in his head as he fell asleep, wondering which one of them was true – was Arthur the cool city kid who followed around bands? Or the neat, reserved boy who so desperately wanted to allow himself small freedoms late at night? Maybe an extroverted rebel with a secret buried so deep inside that one could only see it in flashes, in passing? It took Eames a while to realise that Arthur was an entity of multitudes. That all the sides that Eames saw or could assume of Arthur could come together to ultimately make up one man. A man that Eames may never fully understand.

“So, what the fuck, Eames?” Arthur looked him in the eye as the waiter moved away.

Eames stared him down, searching for that glint of recognition in Arthur’s expression whilst he tried not to let his own internal meltdown show. But Arthur wore a good mask, when he wanted to. A veil that kept everyone out.

“I thought it was pretty self-explanatory, no?” Eames put the sunglasses down on the table, moved his hand to his cup. Easy to play it smooth if you distract yourself with acting normal. Which usually would be easy, because fuck if Eames was a good actor, but with Arthur – things never seemed to go to plan.

“You pulled a gun on me!” Arthur hissed suddenly, his veil shifting to anger for just a second. “How am I supposed to respond to that?”

And there it was again – the twisting in his gut that Eames had had in the bank, the ache in his ribs.

“I’m sorry, Arthur, I really am,” Eames fiddled with the glasses on the table, left them alone to look Arthur steadily in the eye. “You know I’d never hurt you, right? Never.” Eames felt his forehead crease, knew that his eyes must have grown darker. He had grown accustomed to violence in ragged spite of all the love in his stomach. That ache, that twist – a reminder from deep within his chest that it was okay if Arthur didn’t forgive him.

Arthur was silent, just for a second, and Eames could swear he saw the mask slip.

“Why Paris?” Arthur said finally. “Why here? Why now? Why –” And Eames got the particular feeling that Arthur was about to say, ‘ _Why me?_ ’

“Why’d you say that?” Eames felt his eyebrows furrow together, found himself leaning further over the table.

Arthur took a deep breath in, like he was composing that mask again. Or, like he was trying to.

“I –” he started, “I just got here. I’ve been working in architecture since I left school.” Arthur let out a heavy sigh. “And they finally let me build something beautiful, and here we are. This branch of the bank isn’t sure they have the money for a full renovation anymore.”

Oh. It had been Arthur working on the renovations for the bank. Well.

“I’m sorry,” Eames spoke with his whole chest, hoping that would come across. “I know how hard you worked for something like this.” And he did, because Eames had been there when Arthur had been about to go to school for architecture. About to uproot himself and screw himself in alongside the mechanics, the dreamers, the artists. To become one himself.

The air was still for a second.

“I swear to god, Eames, if you’ve fucked this up for me, I don’t care which of us is the criminal. I’ll kill you.” And Arthur was so fucking straight-faced when he said it that Eames laughed, the happy belly laugh that fills you with butterflies, and Eames watched the mask slip from Arthur’s face and dimples creep up his cheeks as he started to laugh along too.

Arthur’s coffee arrived at the table, and was set down, and Arthur thanked the waiter with a smile in his eyes, and when he looked back at Eames the smile was still there. The mask gone.

“Out of anyone, I’m glad it was you,” Arthur said, taking a breath. “I like having my kneecaps in one piece.”

Eames shook his head, smiled. Unsure what to say. So, Arthur spoke instead.

“Mal and Dom had another kid,” He said. Eames snorted at the sudden subject change.

“No way,” Eames grinned. “When?”

“James was born in January. I’m hoping to go and see them whilst I’m in France.”

“They’re in Calais, right? Near the sea.” Eames remembered the time, after Arthur, when he travelled down South to stand on the cliffs of Dover, stare across the Channel and squint as he tried to see the coast of France in the distance. It was always nice to imagine he could, but that whole autumn the sky stayed dark and foggy.

“They are. Mal likes to be by the ocean. She tells me there’s a train line running parallel to the shore. That when the freight trains rush by the world feels whole.” Arthur held his coffee mug in both hands, like it would warm him. Unbecoming of the cultured businessman his tailored suit implied, fitting instead a young American in Paris, wide-eyed and in love with the world.

“That sounds lovely. We’ll have to get you there at some point,” Eames said, and Arthur threw him a look.

The look hit like a punch to Eames’ stomach, because in that moment he realised that just because his and Arthur’s paths had collided once again didn’t mean they would stay on the same course. Didn’t mean that Arthur wanted that. Eames had envisioned this day for years, envisioned them working it out, getting a flat together, waking up in the sunlight and holding one another again. But maybe he had been wrong. Maybe they would trundle past each other once again. Maybe this wasn’t destiny.

“Or not,” Eames said. Watched Arthur sip his coffee.

“Last time I saw you, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” Eames continued. “When I ran down the platform after your train, I thought that was it.”

Arthur set down his mug, and he had that dark look in his eye again.

“I am sorry, you know,” Arthur said. The mask hadn’t slipped back. Eames tried to make note of the details of his face, the lines, the moles. Eames swallowed, smiled.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” he replied, and the heat in Arthur’s gaze dissolved, softness replacing it as his brows pulled together.

“You’re still wearing my watch,” Arthur noted, nodding at Eames wrist. His sleeve had ridden up to show the worn leather strap and gold clock face. Eames had lifted it, the first time they spoke, in the music shop, and Arthur had told him to keep it, that same gorgeous smile on his face.

_“Like a jacket,”_ Arthur had said at the time, _“Some things fit some people better than others.”_

Arthur’s phone chimed in his coat, and he shook his head like he was clearing his thoughts.

“I have to get back to work,” he said, turning to dig into his pocket, peering at the screen. Eames nodded, realising he hadn’t thought about that.

“Yesterday didn’t – it didn’t fuck things up _too_ much, did it?” Eames watched as Arthur stood up, started to put on his coat. Ever an agent of efficiency, of time managed and organised neatly. Maybe Eames was just another thing on Arthur’s list of things to do today.

“Just a little bit,” Arthur said, and the smile was still in his eyes as he spoke. As he picked his cup off the table and drained the rest of his drink. “But if you pay for this coffee, I’ll let you off.”

Eames scoffed. “I was going to pay for your coffee anyway, love.” He watched Arthur run one hand over his mouth, like he was in a hurry to leave. “Will I see you again?”

“I hope not,” Arthur took a pen out of the inside pocket of his coat, grabbed a napkin from the table and started to scribble down a string of numbers.

“Call me,” he said. His handwriting was angular, slanted, like always. Not untidy, but not particularly neat. Eames smiled and nodded, watching as Arthur tucked the pen back into his coat.

“Goodbye, Mr. Eames.”

\----------

“Have you heard from Arthur lately?” Eames posed to Ariadne not long after, as they walked through a touristy street near a museum. Eames had his hands in his pockets as he walked, his shoulders slung back, open, like the stress had fallen off them. Ariadne, in contrast, was tense – as she often was – her hands meeting one another in front of herself as she walked.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know you’d be the first person I’d tell if I had.”

Ariadne had known Arthur back when they both lived in Ohio, long before Eames and Arthur had ever met. She had gone to high school with him, gone into architecture at the same time, but gone to university in France instead of New York. It had been the summer between Arthur’s high school senior year and his freshman year at university that Eames had met him - a stagnation of a time, Eames having been disenfranchised with the success of the band he fronted, Arthur having been a contradiction of a person – so excited for his future and the friends he would make, yet so filled with anxiety and loneliness.

“Why do you ask?” Ariadne said, as they turned a corner onto another street. There was washing hung up high, above the cobbles, between the houses, white shirts like flags waving in the Spring breeze. It had turned into a beautiful afternoon from the dull morning, and Eames wondered, momentarily, if that had anything to do with the fact that he’d seen Arthur.

Eames shrugged, and Ariadne shook her head.

“Did you burn your mask?” She asked, her thin brown eyebrows almost meeting in the centre of her forehead.

“I did,” Eames responded, “Along with the gloves and clothes I was wearing.”

“Good. Tyler’s fucked off to Austria already,” Ariadne continued. Tyler had been the leader during their string of bank robberies, a stringy man with a constant frown who hailed from South Africa. Eames hadn’t particularly liked him, so he was glad that no more jobs were in the planning any time soon.

“I heard Jude is on their way back to the States,” Eames added. Jude, although completely terrifying, was a lovely person who had discussed the gender binary at length with Eames. They liked to show off their shooting skills on occasion, and had told Eames plenty about their girlfriend and how they were using much of the money to fund her transition.

“And Tadashi is in Belgium, but he didn’t tell me where he was headed.” Ariadne said. Eames and Ariadne had known Tadashi for years. He was British, in his early twenties and reserved, and something about him always reminded Eames of –

“So where are you going next?” Ariadne asked.

“It’s funny you should say that,” Eames grinned, and they sat down on the steps outside the museum. “I may have had a reason for asking you if you had heard from Arthur.”

“No way,” Ari smiled as she sat down. “You’ve spoken to him?”

Eames took a breath. “He was at the bank, yesterday,” he said.

Ariadne’s face lit up. And then fell. “You mean – you held the ex-love of your life, who, by the way, also happens to be my childhood best friend, hostage?”

Eames grinned at an elderly French man who was giving Ariadne a shocked look.

“Small world, isn’t it?”

\----------

Eames dreamt about Arthur that night. In dreams, Eames’ world was that of a romantic: saturated and bright, like everything was flowers. All the beams of light cascading more beautifully onto Arthur’s form than they ever could’ve in that music shop they’d first met in. Everything warm toned, cosy. All yellow. Eames dreamt of Arthur’s nimble fingers as he flicked through rock records, of the flush in his cheeks when Eames had recommended him an album, of the weight of Arthur’s watch, stolen from his wrist, in Eames’ pocket.

The dream shifted, to abstract shapes. To heat, to the image of curtains softly blowing in the breeze of the open window behind, to the lines of the duvet over Arthur in the morning. To the mole on Arthur’s waist, and the way he’d trembled when Eames had run his fingers over it.

“Beautiful,” Eames said, and the dream dissipated, like steam. Like a mirage. The taste of Arthur’s mouth still on his tongue as he woke up alone.

Eames punched the digits of Arthur’s number into his mobile phone as he brewed coffee, that morning. Arthur wrote his zeroes with lines through them, a structural form, a foundation.

The tone rang out, over and over again, and Eames wasn’t sure what he was thinking. The news droned dully in the background of his senses, too fast and French for Eames to understand, only somewhat coherent. Somewhat there. The coffee machine squealed as it brewed on the hob.

The call went to Arthur’s voicemail. He had a personalised message, and how weird it felt to hear Arthur speak in that depersonalised tone.

“Hey, you’ve reached the voicemail of Arthur Cohen. Sorry, I’m not around right now. Please feel free to leave a message, and I’ll be sure to get back to you. ‘Bye!”

Polite, formal, yet kind. Almost winking. The line beeped, and Eames cleared his throat.

“Hello, Arthur, it’s Eames,” he said. Stayed silent for a few seconds, unsure of what came next. “I’m just – making coffee –” Stupid thing to say, Eames told himself “– and thinking about you. I had another dream about what – about what we used to have.” Eames sniffed, brought the fingers of one hand across the underside of his nose. “I hope you have a good day, darling,” he said. “Do take care.”

\----------

Eames’ phone rang at ten that night. He was half asleep, watching a badly subtitled movie in French when it happened, a bowl of popcorn balanced on his chest that spilled as he scrabbled for the phone. 

“ _Bonjour_?” Eames tried to chew faster to clear his mouth, but his word came out garbled, ridiculous in his harsh accent.

“Eames, right?” Arthur’s voice said, and Eames’ heart rate sped up.

“Hello,” he replied. “It’s good to hear you. I was worried I might’ve fucked that job of yours right up. I know how much it means to you.”

“It really does,” Arthur said. “But you’re okay, for now.”

Eames chewed at a fingernail.

“Listen,” Arthur said, slowly. “I’ve been thinking about what we were saying yesterday. About Mal.”

“Oh, yes?”

Arthur took a breath, and Eames heart was in his mouth. “Maybe we can work it out. I’d like to try. But- first, I- I wanted to show you some of these designs I’ve done.”

“Of course,” Eames bit back the word _love_ at the end of his sentence.

“I want to show you how I’ve changed,” Arthur continued. “And I want to see how you’ve changed. Maybe we can see about it from there.”

“What brought this on, Arthur?” Eames said, and Arthur paused.

“I don’t have an ulterior motive, Eames, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said. “I just miss you. I –” Arthur broke off.

“Right,” Eames replied, flippantly, like he understood. “When do you want me over?”

“If you want, now.”

They met outside Arthur’s hotel, and the air was warm.

“It’s turning for the Spring,” said the woman at the desk of the hotel. Eames could only imagine what she assumed about Arthur and Eames being in that lobby together at the hour it was. Arthur didn’t seem to care. He still wore his work clothes, tie removed and shirt collar unbuttoned. Sleeves rolled up. His hair starting to make its way free of the holds of hair wax, one lock of it falling over his forehead artfully. Even undone, Arthur revelled in aesthetic. Even burning the midnight oil, he was graceful.

Arthur scanned a card with a beep to open the door to room 222, and it was cool and dark, the lights low and the window open onto the street below. It was minimalistic – of course – a desk, a bed, a couple of chairs, a kitchenette, an en suite. Much like the flat Arthur had rented with Mal back in the day. Arthur’s record player even sat on one chair, and Eames noticed that the record on the deck was the one Eames had sold him at the music shop the first day they met.

“Any scratches?” Eames nodded to the record, and Arthur smiled.

“I lost the first one at college,” he confessed. “But I had to get another.”

Eames nodded. He wasn’t sure if that separated or united them more.

There was a growing pile of stacked coffee cups on Arthur’s desk, an uncharacteristic mess, punctuated only by pencils, pens and rulers scattered over the table. All surrounding the stacks of paper, covered in neat lines, smudges and markings that Eames couldn’t make out.

“Sorry it’s messy,” Arthur said, as if Eames cared. “Can I get you anything before I show you these designs?”

“How about you get us both a beer?”

Arthur nodded. “You know what?” He took a breath in. Eames watched his chest rise, noticed the mole on his collarbone where his shirt buttons were undone. “I’m gonna order takeout whilst I’m at it. I don’t remember the last time I ate something that wasn’t coffee.” 

The way they slotted back together was effortless. Eames had always felt they made a good team, and their time apart hadn’t changed that. Everything felt easy as Eames picked out a restaurant and circled what they both would want in red biro, before Arthur rang up, ordering in French a little more complex than Eames was used to.

“How long have you lived here, genius?” Arthur smiled at him as he hung up the phone, and Eames thought, suddenly, that if he saw Arthur every day, he’d remember the light in his eyes in that moment, as he slipped from French to English.

“Two years,” Eames grinned back, taking a swig of beer. He’d forgone the option of a chair, instead deciding to sit on one of the small kitchen counters.

“Then why, pray tell,” Arthur moved, reaching over the counter to put the phone down where it belonged, and Eames tried to keep his eyes from Arthur’s waist. “Do you still not know how to order fast food?”

“Alright, mum, why don’t you stop judging and just show me these fucking designs, hmm?” Eames hopped down from the counter, putting one hand on Arthur’s shoulder to turn him towards the desk. His skin was warm under the fabric.

Arthur rolled his eyes, going with Eames’ movement to gather up a stack of paper. Eames turned to turn on the record player, moving the needle back to the start of the side. The song was crackly as it began to play, and it felt like, for a second, they could be back in the living room of the rooms Arthur and Mal rented. That they could start dancing.

“Here,” Arthur said, handing him a sheaf of paper, which Eames took readily. He felt Arthur’s eyes still on him as he sat on Arthur’s bed, flicking through the paper, admiring the lines that were yet to become coherent.

Arthur leaned against the chair, crossed his arms over his chest, expectant.

Eames was blown away.

Arthur had been drawing architecturally since he was a kid, and that was something Eames knew about him. Historically, though, Arthur’s drawings were all straight lines, all construction, mechanics, all about weight of line and pencil and pen coming together. Brutalist. But this – this was different. Maybe university had taught Arthur something that it hadn’t taught Eames, because, the designs Arthur gave Eames –

Straight, modernist lines married into the swells of the romantic Victorian curves. Statues, gargoyles - sketched out with perfect accuracy, beautiful detail. The squares of architectural paper were only guidelines for Arthur now. He was in a whole other world. Some were so loose and fantastical they seemed like they could be dreams. Impossible, impractical. Except that the numbers crawling their way through the lines like inscriptions in the stone showed all the equations and maths and mechanics Arthur might need to go forward.

The takeaway came to the door, and Arthur answered the door and paid the bill, speaking hushed French just out of Eames field of hearing. He kept on going through the designs, page after page of logistics, of maths and art and beauty.

Something unfolded on the paper, the process of Arthur’s mind, and the mash of culture in the sheets so heavily reminded Eames of the streets of Manchester, and he wasn’t sure what to think about that.

“Darling,” Eames said, slowly, looking up finally to see Arthur with chopsticks and noodles halfway to his mouth. “I didn’t know you had the creativity.”

Arthur laughed.

“That’s why I wanted to show you the designs,” Arthur lay down the chopsticks on top of his food. “To show you I’m better now. I’ve grown. I’m not eighteen and running away from everything I love anymore.”

Eames stared Arthur in the eyes solidly, then, for a few seconds, and he saw it all. He saw everything. The made-up Arthur in his head – the one based on the Arthur he used to know – and the Arthur sat in front of him, now, they were identical. And yet so completely unlike one another.

Arthur’s lips parted, like he was breathless, like he was remembering how to breathe. And Eames couldn’t take it.

“Arthur, please tell me if I’m interpreting this wrong. Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Arthur said. Entirely quickly, sharply, like he’d been waiting the whole evening. Like he’d been waiting longer.

So, Eames put down the papers, leaned across. Kissed Arthur. Like the tide hitting the sea wall. Like a seagull dashing its brains against a cliff face. Like coming home.

\----------

Arthur explained design choices, later on, when the two of them sat, partially dressed, in Arthur’s bed. Eames wore a singular sock, eating the chow mein he’d ordered, whilst Arthur wore Eames faded grey t-shirt. The blinds jostled at the window, as the night grew restless, as the sky cried to turn blue.

Arthur’s face lit up as he spoke, and Eames was enamoured at his passion. The way Arthur was able to laugh at his own mistakes, in places, and the way new ideas flourished from those mistakes. The new ways he’d grown, the way that he had bloomed. Eames so often found himself comparing Arthur to the Spring, and the March night making way for its morning outside only made the comparison clearer.

“I have to tell you about Ariadne," Eames said, suddenly, and the way Arthur’s face dropped terrified him.

“Go on,” he said. Eames took a deep breath.

“When I first moved out here, I ran into her, randomly.”

“She stayed here after university, right?” Eames could see the cogs in Arthur’s head turning as he spoke, and he wished, briefly, that they would slow, just for a second. Before Arthur gave himself a heart attack.

Eames nodded, slowly. “Upon our reunion, we may have got involved with the group of people you met briefly at the bank the other day.”

Arthur raised one eyebrow.

Eames felt like a guilty dog as he spoke. “I should have told you we were still friends before now. I’m sorry.”

“You’re telling me Ariadne was at your dumb bank heist?” Arthur’s face was unreadable, the eyebrow still quirked.

“She’s our getaway driver,” Eames replied simply. Watched Arthur’s face and tried to gauge what he was thinking. Betrayal? Anger? Arthur’s face hardly shifted, and for the longest second, Eames’ blood turned cold. And then…

Arthur started laughing. His cheeks dimpled and the corners of his eyes creased.

“I can’t believe that you hooked my childhood best friend into a life of crime,” Arthur smiled.

“Well, it was more her that got me into it…” Eames said, grumbling, uncertain of what this meant.

“I’d love to see her again, you moron,” Arthur continued. Put one hand on Eames cheek. “The whole gang back together.”

“The whole gang… back together,” Eames parroted, and Arthur kissed him.

\----------

Eames woke up before Arthur the next morning.

One of the things Eames had always found endearing about Arthur was his sleep pattern.

Arthur’s tells weren’t all obvious. To a stranger, Arthur wouldn’t seem cold. He held himself confidently, gracefully, but relaxed. His shoulders pulled backwards, never upwards. There was always something inviting, charismatic, about Arthur. To everyone.

But, if one were to pass him the street, he wouldn’t smile. He wouldn’t show it if he didn’t know how to do something. He wouldn’t let imperfections show.

Around Eames, he was different. He showed Eames what wasn’t on the surface, and it was nights like the one they’d just had that reminded Eames of it. Arthur showed Eames that he would stay up until sunrise and sleep until late morning, that he’d drink too much coffee and then complain when Eames didn’t enable him. That he would take up the whole bed and hog the duvet overnight.

Eames liked to watch Arthur’s eyes dance under his eyelids as he dreamt.

_He had scribbled his number on the receipt when he sold Arthur that record_ _. Waited by his phone all day when he got home from work, his heart in his chest, trying to be patient, and when Arthur finally called, Eames didn’t even hide his excitement._

_“Let me buy you a drink,” he had insisted, and Arthur had taken a breath, laughing just a little, before he had accepted._

_He had told Arthur about his band –_

_“Your band’s name is Dramamine?” Arthur asked Eames, “Like the motion sickness drug?”_

_“Our bassist – Rob – he gets travel sick. And I like drama,” he had explained, and watched as Arthur nodded._

_Arthur had told him about Mal, about his affinity for Fleetwood Mac, and about how this was the first time he’d been out of his state._

_“Ohio,” he had said. “Is most easily described as a sprawling expanse of absolutely fucking nothing.”_

_“That sounds like it must be fun,” Eames had replied, smiling as he took a sip of his drink._

_“I think I must’ve been bored stupid for the last eighteen years of my life,” Arthur continued. “It seems so much more interesting, here, though.”_

_Eames shook his head. “I find myself bored very often, Arthur, darling,” he said, resting his jaw on one hand._

_At that, Arthur’s eyes had boggled. “You’re on tour! You’re nineteen and in a band. You’re living the dream!”_

_“I don’t know,” Eames had looked down into his glass. “I’m starting to think any dream can go bad if it goes on long enough.”_

Eames didn’t remember what filled the silence he left, but he did remember what Arthur had said next.

_“I almost drowned, once,” Arthur had swallowed as he spoke, and Eames had looked up, felt his gaze wash warm over Arthur._

_“Mal pulled me out. I was fine. That was how we met, actually,” Arthur paused. “But – in that moment, when my lungs were filling with water, and I didn’t know if I would ever breathe again – I had a dream_. _I dreamt that my dreams were that of everyone around me. And theirs were mine. Symbiotic.”_

_Their eyes met again, then, and Eames swore he saw something flash in Arthur’s gaze. “My mom used to tell me this story, that if you slept close enough to someone, you’d both have the same dreams. I used to sleep curled next to her into my teens, trying to calm her nightmares.”_

_“What I’m trying to say, Eames, is,” Arthur continued. “Would you like to share dreams with me?”_

Eames sometimes wondered if, when Arthur dreamt in the morning like this, he was dreaming of them together. Curling up together in the morning, or walking along a beach. Standing on a clifftop. Staring across the English Channel. Driving through tunnels together with David Bowie blaring. Eames wondered if the light in Arthur’s dreams was more blue than yellow.

Eames scanned his eyes around the room. It was different, in the morning light, the sun streaming through the blinds, casting rays over the white sheets, over Arthur’s wardrobe and the clothes hung up inside, over the record player and the stack of records next to it. Eames liked to go into charity shops and buy the record with the weirdest cover art. Arthur’s were all recognisable.

“Hey,” Arthur’s voice was sleepy, and Eames grinned as his eyes fell back upon him.

“Hi,” Eames said, and Arthur beamed as they made eye contact, breaking into a laugh and rolling over to hide the blush coming to his cheeks. Eames watched his Adam’s apple bob, let his eyes run over where the sheets met all of his skin. Smooth, dotted with moles, stretched over lithe muscle and a perfectly sculptured frame. Beautiful in the morning sunlight.

“Stop leering, asshole,” Arthur grinned, and Eames chuckled as Arthur reached for his mobile phone next to the bed to check the time.

“Shit, I’m running late,” Arthur said, and wasn’t that different? To not be teenagers with little responsibility beyond what to have for tea and when they were going to start buying things for their university kitchen.

“No worries,” Eames said, smiled at Arthur put down his phone and looked him in the eyes.

“Can I see you again, soon?” He asked, and Arthur nodded.

“I’d like that,” Arthur said. “Do you want a coffee before I leave?”

\----------

Over the course of Eames’ twenty-seven years on Earth, one of the things that he had found that seemed to be a pressing, life threatening, reoccurring danger was the fact that things tended to go well until they didn’t.

When Eames got home from Arthur’s hotel, the key to his flat tucked into his palm, he found Ariadne waiting outside his door.

“They know,” she said, and Eames was already running through options in his head.

“Fuck,” he replied, simply, and unlocked the door to let them both in.

Of course, what Ariadne meant when she said that was that the cops were already on their way. Eames was already bracing himself to hear the sirens. Getting cocky about this kind of thing was never a good idea, and so, maybe, his teammates had had the right idea in fucking off to wherever the fuck they had gone to. Tadashi had even made the wise decision to not tell anyone where he was going. Eames almost wished he’d had that oversight.

“It’s just the five of us they’ve identified,” Ariadne said. “No connections. I have plane tickets from Geneva secured,” she continued, “And friends waiting in Mombasa to meet us. With luck, this won’t even be a bump in the road.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Eames said as he pulled down the blinds covering his windows, scanning the streets below for undercovers.

Ariadne gave Eames a knowing look.

\----------

He was halfway through packing his bag when his phone rang.

“Afraid I have bad news, darling,” Eames said as he answered. Picking out a few brightly coloured ties he could live without.

“Go on,” Arthur replied, without a beat. Something in his tone sounded angry, and Eames took a breath, put his phone on speakerphone and onto the bed.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he said. “But me and my friends have been compromised. Me and Ariadne have to leave the country.”

Arthur was quiet for a second. Eames heard a _thunk_ , like Arthur had kicked something – and the mutter of a curse under his breath. Eames felt his guts twisting again, like someone had pushed a cold fork into his stomach and twirled his innards around. He swallowed as he threw more things into his bag.

When Arthur finally spoke, it was with a sigh.

“Okay, Eames,” Arthur said. “My job got postponed because they can’t fund all the work right now.”

Eames stopped in his tracks.

“Fuck me,” Eames breathed. “I’m sorry, Arthur. Can I –” He wracked his brain for a moment to find a solution, but all the tracks in his brain seemed to run into one another. “Can I anonymously wire them some money? Please pay the following sum to Arthur Cohen?”

Arthur was silent, and Eames felt his heart beating in his throat. Like metal behind his tongue.

“Would that even work?” Eames began to zip up his bag, if nothing but to keep his hands busy. He had to keep moving.

“Do what you like, Eames,” Arthur said, and Eames went dizzy. “I hope I’ll see you again.” He sounded like ice. He sounded like he was speaking to a stranger. Maybe Eames was wrong. Maybe Arthur could be cold.

“You will,” Eames’ words hardly came out as a whisper. “Keep this number,” he continued, clearing his throat. “I’ll call you when it’s safe.”

Eames waited for an answer, but the tone rang out dead.

\----------

Eames and Ariadne took off at midday. They boarded a train to Geneva, and the city skyline made way to miles of expansive fields, the train flying by fast enough that it blurred into an endless green sea. They travelled in silence, the few others on board changing languages around them, and the sky growing greyer as they got closer to the border.

Eames often felt, at large, that as a train approached its destination, there was always a sensation of anxiety in the gut. Unnecessary nerves, no matter how many times one had taken the route before. _What-Ifs_ that circled around the skull, cartoon-like.

As they got off the train, a voice spoke in German over a tannoy system. Eames spoke more German than he did French – a remnant of his secondary school education, carried into adulthood after he had learnt that learning for learning’s sake was enjoyable – so it should’ve been comforting. But Eames just felt a little more sick.

Ariadne spoke Swiss as well as German (and French, Italian, Spanish) so she was elected to flag down a cab. It was raining, outside the train station, that slow, dense kind of rain that pattered down loudly and drenched everything. They crossed the road, the rain weaselling itself into the collar of Eames’ suit as he ducked into a phone box and punched in the number for the bank. He stacked Euro coins on the cool metal of the machine as the tone rang out.

“Bonjour,” Eames said when someone answered, continuing when they asked what they could do for him. “I’m Mr Lloyd. I heard about what happened with the bank robbery recently, from the news.”

“Yes, terrible business,” they spoke slowly, and Eames was glad for it, because it was difficult to hear over the rain.

“I wanted to know if I could donate money specifically towards the cost of the renovation?” Eames slotted in another coin, turned around to see Ariadne, hair clinging to her face, arguing with a taxi driver across the road.

“I’d have to put you through to the manager,” the person replied, and Eames nodded.

“That’s fine,” he said, and the line played music as he held.

“Salut,” the manager speaking spoke faster, quicker. “Mr Lloyd, yes? You must be invested in this project to want to donate.”

“Oh, yes, I’m very passionate about it,” Eames replied, “In particular, I want to make sure that the architect, builders and overseers are all paid fairly.”

They worked out a figure, and Eames recited the number of the card he had used whilst in Paris, the one he’d extracted all the money he needed from and left just enough for something like this on. Over the next few months, he planned to go cash only. It was an odd feeling for a rapidly digitalising world.

He hung up the phone, collected the last few Euro coins he hadn’t used, and climbed in the cab that Ariadne had got to drive up next to the phone box.

“The airport, yes?” The driver said, and Ariadne nodded as the cab launched over the wet cobbled ground.

\----------

Eames wasn’t afraid as they boarded the plane. This wasn’t the first time this had happened, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. Both his and Ariadne’s false identities were secure – he trusted Tyler, despite the man’s downsides – and there was no threat to them until at least the time they got off the plane.

That didn’t mean Eames’ mind was at rest, though. His thoughts raced as they flew over Turkey.

“Sleep,” Ariadne told him, with puppy eyes that begged him to take care, but every time Eames closed his eyes, he could only see Arthur’s face. Only hear the disappointment in Arthur’s voice as the tone rang out dead. Only feel that quickly becoming familiar twist in his stomach.

It was dark when they touched down. The night air was warm, but the damp had followed the plane and it rained softly as Eames and Ariadne ducked into the car their friends had sent for them.

Eames had a tendency to explore people he met. He liked to investigate people so closely that each of their actions made complete sense to him, every nuance of body language and vocal inflection – but the friends hosting them were mysterious in a way that Eames knew was not for him to interpret. In a way that felt higher than his understanding.

They both went by their first initials, and the woman meeting them outside the house smiled at any point of eye contact.

“I’m G, this is T,” G said as she introduced herself.

“Like a gin and tonic,” Eames had smiled, weary, and T had scowled at him.

They were both fluent in Swahili, French and English, were impossible to gauge, and had a storeroom full of weapons. T pointed Eames and Ariadne to the bathroom and to their respective bedrooms, and then he left them alone.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Eames said to Ariadne.

She rolled her eyes. “Get some sleep,” she said, and closed her door behind her.

It was weird, being in a new place, so quickly. The rain thrummed outside so differently than the drumming it had been more reminiscent of in Switzerland. Bugs and animals cried out, even in the rain, but Eames was glad for his open window. The room was sweaty already.

There was a guitar at the end of the bed.

\----------

Eames’ time in Kenya was hardly lucid.

He struggled to sleep, and when he did, he had fevered dreams of improbable libraries and endless pits of despair. Arthur’s face hid in every scorched hardback on every row of every shelf, and yet evaded Eames like the dusty smell of an old paperback.

He found himself fussy and frantic in the daytime, hardly able to explore for the rain. He stayed inside, or sat under the porch, most days, trying to remember how to play guitar.

He wrote a letter, one day, after hearing from Tyler that it was safe to send snail mail so long as it passed through at least one person before meeting its recipient.

_Dear Arthur._

_I’m writing to apologise, of course. Running off and leaving like that wasn’t very gentlemanly of me, regardless of the looming perils of prison. I should’ve waited. Maybe I should’ve brought you with me. I’m sorry._

The words seemed to jumble up, as Eames wrote, jumping to and fro on the paper. Like they wanted free of their inky shackles. Eames could relate.

_I spoke to the man paying you. I wired him an undisclosed amount of money and told him how excited I was to see the finished result. I might’ve used a false name, but that bit wasn’t a lie. I hope the money got to you._

That was one point of business Eames had needed to address, and one that had haunted his thoughts since he put down the phone. Would the bank trace his account? Find that the card belonging to Mr Lloyd was no longer being used. Find that it was shredded in a plastic recycling bin in Switzerland airport.

Eames explained about his dreams, too.

_I dream of an octagonal library, a pit in the centre of the balconies that falls forever. I dream of you hiding amongst the books, of opening every one to try and speak to you. Do you see it too, if you close your eyes?_

He explained about why he couldn’t call, why he couldn’t hear his voice, and about the third party.

_I can’t tell you my address, because it isn’t permanent. But please write back._

_If you remember Rob from my band - the bassist with car sickness - he currently resides in Oxford, in the UK. It’s safe to send these letters through him._

Rob – Robert – was a trust fund kid. The Irish-American son of a CEO who joined the band out of boredom. He hadn’t even been that good of a bassist.

He still lived in England. Eames had heard about Rob’s father’s death just a few years before, and had promised to keep in touch. He had since broken the promise.

_I look forward to hearing your reply, love._

_Eames x_

He packaged it in a brown envelope, sealed it with a kiss. Put it in a second envelope with Robert’s address on the front and a note of forwarding slipped inside. Gave it to T to take into town.

The night Eames sent the letter, it rained cooler, heavier than it had for a while. Unable to sleep, Eames decided to go for a walk, in the dark. It was late enough that no cars drove around, and the damp tarmac of the roads glistened under where Eames walked.

If he closed his eyes, he thought, he could be home. He could be seventeen and going into his last year at school. He could change his whole life.

Or he could open his eyes, and look the future dead in its glistening eyes.

\---------

Arthur wrote his dates with dashes. And backwards, as Eames found out, almost a month later as he opened the letter outside Ariadne’s childhood home in Vancouver. She was inside, talking to an aunt, and Eames had carefully opened the envelope – twice post stamped and thrice added to. Sat on the step outside, he drew his thumb over the handwriting – the careful block capitals that stated Robert’s address, from within the envelope stating T and G’s address, crossed out and replaced with the address in Vancouver.

Canada had been a welcome change. It was April when Ariadne and Eames had left Kenya, and the sweltering heat of the awakening Summer and Eames’ minimal wardrobe had left cool, dry weather to be desired for.

“I hardly grew up here,” Ariadne had told him as they entered the country. She had moved to Ohio in elementary school, where her and Arthur had first met. “But I do remember it fondly.”

_‘3-30-13,’_ the letter began.

_‘Eames._

_I count in my head to pass the time. It calms me down. I start at 100 and go down. When I rang you and you told me you were leaving, I got to 0 with my heart still in my mouth._

_I got the money. I don’t want to thank you, but I will if you ask. It’s weird, because I only knew you this time for three days. It feels like a mirage. It feels like everything should continue on its way. Like it should be normal. It isn’t though, is it?_

_I forgive you, still. How could I not? You made Paris feel alive. You were its heartbeat. It’s only rained since you left._

_Your description of your library helped me, so I will thank you for that. It gave me a last push of inspiration to finish my plans. I submitted them last night, and I cried (With relief? Happiness? Grief? I don’t know). They’ll be reviewed by Monday._

_It’s funny that this letter will pass through England. I haven’t been back. How long did you stay there after us? How long could you bear it?_

_I’ll have to leave for Paris soon. I’m not strong, and I miss Mal. I’ll keep you updated._

_Love,_

_Arthur.’_

Alongside the letter – written on dotted paper, folded neatly, with an unruled octagon drawn on the reverse – was a scrap of paper. Eames tipped out the envelope, and it fell into his hand.

It was a fortune, from a fortune cookie. Blue ink on the tiny slip of paper, half folded in the middle. Printed on it:

_Your dreams are never silly;_

_depend on them to guide you._

_Lucky Numbers: 1, 2, 8, 7, 40, 43_

The sun didn’t come out from behind the clouds. Birds didn’t sing. But Eames felt himself smiling. He slipped the fortune into his jeans pocket, put the folded letter back into its envelope, and went back inside.

After Vancouver – they didn’t stay long, for fear of endangering Ariadne’s family – they ended up in Wales.

“I’m telling you; it doesn’t feel right to be going back,” Eames said as they waved goodbye to Ariadne’s family. Ariadne had picked up more clothes, whilst they were there, and wished her mother a happy birthday. Her family had – earlier – asked if Eames was a boyfriend, which had led to a very confused standoff.

“No,” Ariadne had eventually laughed, awkwardly, and Eames had smiled and shook his head.

“Your family don’t know you’re gay?” Eames had asked her later, and Ariadne had massaged her temple with two fingers.

“Do yours?” She asked, and Eames looked away.

“I haven’t been back, either, you know.” Ariadne said as they put luggage into the taxi.

“Do you think we should, without Arthur?”

“We don’t have much of a choice, Eames.” She said, and Eames shut up.

The ocean lapped hungrily at the beach as Eames sat on the rocks at Colwyn Bay to pen another letter to Arthur. This one spoke of more good luck wishes, apologies of not being there. Promises that they’d see one another again soon. But Eames stared out to sea, his collar turned up against the wind, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to honour that promise.

There were other things going on, of course, but running from the international law – much like touring as a band – left for an awful lot of waiting around with nothing much to do, as much as action movies liked to make it seem glamourous. There was lots of time for Eames to think, and not much else to think about. Visiting his parents in Wales, which usually would’ve been a good opportunity to introduce Ariadne to them and listen to her make jokes about how painfully British they were, turned into an endless stretch of Springtime. Eames had little to do but wander the coastline and think about the man who now could only now be described as the love of Eames’ life.

So, what would happen if Eames kept running? What if he never stopped? Eames couldn’t help but wonder as he stared out to sea. The way the tide lapped at the ocean, eating away the coast as it drew towards the rocks. He felt, in that moment, the same way he did as he ran after the train Arthur was leaving on, as he approached the end of the platform and realised it was pointless. Breathless and bruised.

Arthur hadn’t planned to come back. It was an accident that they met. Eames had held him at gunpoint, for fuck’s sake. What if one night wasn’t enough to know if Eames should go back? What if Arthur hadn’t wanted him back at all?

Except – when Eames arrived back at his parents terraced house, kissed his mother on the forehead after she asked if he needed any laundry doing like he was fifteen years old – Ariadne came to see him.

“I found this in a box in my room,” she said, and handed him a glaringly familiar piece of paper.

After Eames had moved out of home, gone to university, flown the coop, however one wanted to express it, his parents had moved house. Away from the bustling inner city of Greater Manchester, heading West to North Wales, to the rural coast. They’d asked Eames, when he’d come home for Christmas, what he wanted to take before they moved, and then left with the rest of Eames’ stuff in cardboard boxes. Including a note that Eames had tried to forget existed.

He had thought his parents must’ve thrown it out, but there it was, in Ariadne’s hand. The note Arthur had left before he boarded his train and left.

Maybe if Eames was younger, maybe if he had the stamina for it, maybe if he was nineteen and not twenty-seven – which, whilst still young, felt like an eternity of difference, an ocean wall of rocks on his back that wasn’t there eight years ago – maybe if it was 2006, Eames would be able to keep running. The way Arthur did. The decision he made on that day in early September just another thing weighing down his shoulders. Maybe Eames would have been able to keep running, too, but he knew, this time there would be no note. No way to write everything down in blue ink on lined paper.

“ _Eames, I’m sorry_ ,” The note read.

“ _I have to go. I’m so scared. I’m fucking terrified, and we’ve talked about it.”_ Eames remembered the conversations about starting university, about it being Arthur’s dream. About how he felt so afraid of being perfect, of being just right, and yet terrified of leaving home. Dangling on a precipice and never sure enough that the knot on his safety rope was tied tight enough to let go.

_“But it’s more than we’ve talked about, Eames,”_ the note continued. _“I’m petrified, frozen with fear, because I am so fucking in love with you.”_

And that was the kicker, wasn’t it. Because if Arthur loved Eames enough to be terrified of it, was there any point in being loved in the first place?

Eames and Ariadne left his parents’ home a week later. They boarded a ferry and Ariadne talked about missing her university days.

“I was so nervous the first time I met a girl at a bar,” she said as they watched the water below get bluer. “I was worried my Canadian French would embarrass me.”

Eames couldn’t imagine Ariadne nervous when she was eighteen. He’d always known her to be confident, even when she was asking for help.

“What were you like at university?” She asked him.

Eames scoffed. “Anxious. Drama teachers really get to you, sometimes. I dropped out after three terms.”

\---------

It was June when they heard from Tyler. It was a simple phone call to Tadashi, who Ariadne and Eames had met up with in Budapest.

“He said to go wherever, do whatever,” Tadashi told them as they gathered for an evening meal, grins on their faces and celebratory champagne cracked open. “But, he said, and I’m quoting, ‘be fucking careful.’”

Eames called Arthur from a payphone the next morning. The tone rang out three times before Arthur picked up, said _bonjour_ in that questioning tone. Eames could’ve melted for it.

“Hello, darling,” Eames said, and listened to Arthur’s soft laugh at the other end.

“I never thought I’d be so happy to hear those words,” Arthur said, and Eames could hear him smiling down the phone. Could imagine all his dimples.

“Are we safe to talk?” Arthur said, and Eames nodded involuntarily.

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, of course. I’m safe to go anywhere, right now.”

Arthur paused, just for a second. “And where are you planning to go?”

“Wherever you are, love,” Eames said, and he realised that he meant it with his whole heart.

Arthur texted him Mal and her husband Dom’s address, and it was in Calais, on the coast. Eames and Ariadne said goodbye and thank you to Tadashi, and boarded the train together to Geneva.

It was sunnier, this time, despite the voice inside Eames’ head that said that notion was ridiculous. Eames counted down the hours until they arrived, and watched a tomato plant bob in its pot on someone’s lap across the carriage from them.

Ariadne called Arthur from the train. She wasn’t planning to come with Eames to Calais, as part of Tyler’s request to be careful. Instead she planned to revisit her parents, let them know she was okay, thank them for their patience. Eames hadn’t told his mum and dad that they were on the run. Eames listened to Ariadne’s side of the conversation, the laughs and reminiscence, and he felt happy that Arthur had someone to laugh with. He wondered what friends Arthur might’ve made since they first met, who he had bonded with. Who might’ve broken his heart when he was in his early 20’s.

For Eames, it had only been Arthur.

Eames hugged Ariadne goodbye in Geneva, outside the airport where she would fly back to Canada. No over-the-shoulder glances for her, now – Eames was happy that she was safe to do as she pleased, and he knew he’d see her again.

He took the train to Paris alone, and had to take his jacket off where he stood in the crowded carriage. Watched the towns turn into cities through the window as they got closer.

A hotel was inevitable – he’d been travelling a while, and with plans to rent a car to drive to Calais in the morning, Eames knew he had to get some sleep.

The thing was, the hotel was quiet. Dreadfully so. Despite the constant buzz of Paris, an ever awakened, ever moving city of dreams, the room Eames found himself in was silent. Even with the window open, he heard nothing. It was hard to sleep, and he tossed and turned in the sheets.

“Solitude is not my forte, darling,” he told Arthur on the phone in the morning. He was checking out of his room as he spoke, thanking the receptionist and taking the – almost comically oversized –takeaway cup of tea that he had bought at approximately seven in the morning.

“Well, get here quickly, then,” Arthur had replied, and Eames had grinned and left the lobby.

The only car at the depot was an old Ford, navy blue and rusting at the tail, and Eames sniffed as he handed over the deposit and received the keys in return.

“Let’s hope it makes the journey, hey?” He said, and the dealer gave him a filthy look.

The journey was tense, and took all day. The cup of tea slowly drained as the day past, and Eames found himself tapping on the steering wheel as the sun went down. The land the roads twisted through grew flatter and flatter, reaching out expansively into farmland in every direction, and then as Eames drove closer to the ocean cliffs began to spring from the shore. Clouds hung over the fields low and heavy, but turned lighter, pinker as the journey went on, before eventually -

It was night when Eames pulled up into Mal Cobb’s driveway. The house was in the middle of a field, nothing else anywhere near, and just a train line – like Arthur said – between the house and the sea. The grass grew long in places, tall blades of it swaying in the breeze, trees lining the edge of the field whispering as if they were telling Eames to be quiet. A train hurtled by as Eames stopped his engine, and it lit up the windows of Mal’s house. The ground shook a little, and the chatter of the trees livened, like they were disgraced at the disturbance.

Eames pushed open the door of the rental car, listening to the groan of the hinges, and stood up, watching as the door of Mal’s house opened, his heart clenching in his chest. The most beautiful man on the planet, the man who stole his heart, the love of his life, etcetera – stepped out, and a baby was swaddled in his arms.

“Hello, darling,” Eames called out – a stage whisper of a shout, the distance between them suddenly not so far, short enough that just a few steps could cover the space between them. Arthur laughed.

“Kiss me, you fool,” he said, in his best _Goodfellas_ accent, his face creased up in a grin. Just the way Eames remembered, the night they’d spent together in March when Eames had traced the lines of Arthur’s face in his head, his smile as he slipped effortlessly from French to English just to make fun of Eames. Just like he was doing now. And god, was it gorgeous.

“ _Bonjour_ ,” Eames said, looking down at James when he got closer. James’ eyes were closed, though, and he breathed deeply and slowly, sound asleep in Arthur’s arms. He must’ve got used to the noise of the train, Eames thought, and then promptly forgot as he got close enough to put his arms around Arthur.

Arthur melted into his arms, and Eames kissed a gasp out of him. Like a seagull dashing its brains against a cliff. Like drowning.

“I missed you,” Arthur said, and Eames licked his lips to taste Arthur on his mouth. That hadn’t changed. He tasted the same as when Eames met him. He tasted the same way that he did in dreams.

“I missed you too,” Eames breathed, and it was so natural it was almost like he didn’t have to say anything at all.

James jostled in his sleep, and they moved apart. Eames noticed that Arthur was just in boxers and a t shirt, and despite the summer air it was growing chillier – the trees in the distance still chattering away in the night air.

“Let’s go inside,” Eames said, reaching around Arthur to grab the door handle, and Arthur nodded and ducked through.

Inside, there was no entryway. Just a kitchen, a coat hanger next to the door with an assortment of shoes nearby. Eames slipped his off, and Arthur carried James further into the kitchen.

It was dark, lights turned low, a tall candle dripping wax onto the kitchen table. It was unmistakably French, unmistakeably Mal, fresh baked bread on the countertop and handmade mugs stacked up beside the coffee maker. Rustic and stylish in that subtle yet obvious way that Eames had noticed when he’d first seen her next to Arthur. The first understanding he had had that Arthur would – should – have been out of his league.

“Mal and Dom are asleep upstairs,” Arthur said, and it suddenly struck Eames that the kitchen had little Dom shaped influences everywhere. The jar of coffee grounds was an American brand. There were ugly mugs with architecture-based slogans hiding behind the stack of rustic handmade ones. A postcard from New York was stuck to the fridge, alongside the Frida Kahlo magnets and colourful kids’ drawings.

Eames had never met Dominic Cobb, but they had spoken on the phone, and Eames hadn’t taken to him – and by that, Eames would say that he bloody hated the man. He was ridiculously American, had terrible taste, used way too much hair gel, and Eames firmly believed that he wasn’t good enough for Mal.

But Eames wasn’t the type of man to be uncivil, despite his criminal tendencies, and so waking Mal and Dom wasn’t on his agenda. He was willing to be kind to the man for as long as he stayed there – or so he hoped.

“I’ll put James back to bed,” Arthur continued. “Help yourself to something to eat.”

By the time Arthur returned, Eames was buttering toast.

“Any for me?” Arthur smiled.

“Sit down, find out,” Eames replied, and so they were eating toast together at the kitchen table in Mal’s house in France at two in the morning.

As they ate, as they lapped up each other’s company hungrily like wolves in the night, Eames decided to ask a question.

“What was it like, when you were drowning? When you first met Mal?”

He knew the answer – of course he did – because it had haunted him for years. Thinking about the miracle of each one of Arthur’s breaths and how quickly they could’ve been eliminated before Eames even had the chance to meet him.

Arthur paused for a second, as if he were thinking about recounting the whole story, like a fable. He took a last bite of his toast.

“Not everything feels like something else,” Arthur said, and he was putting the bread away nonchalantly as Eames smiled at him.

The guest room Arthur was staying in was small – only big enough for a single bed – but they fit, curled up together.

“Do you think about our past often?” Arthur asked, watching as Eames stripped off his t shirt.

“It’s all we have, isn’t it?” Eames replied, and Arthur shook his head. Eames crawled into bed, found himself in Arthur’s arms.

“We’re here right now,” Arthur said. “We’re here together. You came here to me. You’re in my arms, right now, in this moment, and in this moment, I love you.”

“Doesn’t it scare you?” Eames turned to look Arthur in the eyes, dark and sparkling, and they were full of love.

“Not anymore. That was a long time ago, and I’m different now. I hope you can love that about me.”

“I do,” Eames said. “I do.”

\---------

In the morning, Eames woke up hearing baby chatter floating up the stairs. Arthur was already awake, checking his email on his phone.

“Morning, sunshine,” Eames said, and Arthur smiled.

“C’mon,” he said, grabbing Eames by the arm and tugging him out of bed.

Downstairs, Mal seemed mockingly outraged that Eames had arrived in the middle of the night.

“Who is this man, Arthur?” She frowned as Eames entered the kitchen. Arthur shook his head, moving directly towards the coffee machine.

“Nice to see you too, Mal,” Eames grinned, watching as Mal gave the plastic spoon she was holding to Dom, who smiled from where he was sat and continued to feed Philippa. Mal came over for a hug, and she was warm.

She smelt different than Eames remembered, though. No longer of designer perfume. Saltier, murkier, like where the water met the sand and the chalk of a cliff face. Clay under mud. She wore no makeup, and there was toothpaste on her shirt.

“We missed you,” she said as she pulled away. Eames sighed.

“You too, Mal.”

They - Dom, Mal, Arthur, Eames – quickly began to feel as if they had always lived together.

“I’m convinced that the nuclear family model should never be adhered to,” Mal said one day, well rested and drinking coffee from one of her husband’s architecture themed mugs. “Children should be looked after by a unit.”

Eames even began to get on well with Dom, who was surprisingly calm when not pulling his hair out over the care of his children.

“I’m surprised by how good you are with James and Philippa,” he told Eames another time.

“I’m the first to admit I’ve always been more fond of cats than kids,” Eames replied. He was smiling into James’ eyes as he said it, and Arthur watched fondly from where he sat with Mal across the room.

“And yet,” Dom chuckled as James giggled, his arms chubby and reaching for Eames’ face.

\---------

Eames gave Arthur a song, a few weeks later, on a USB drive as they stood at the beach at sunset.

“There was a guitar in my room in Kenya,” Eames said. “I wanted to sing about you.”

“Shit, Eames,” Arthur replied, staring down at the little black rectangle. “I didn’t think you’d pick up a guitar again.”

_(During their time together in 2006, Eames had had an argument with the rest of the band, and Arthur had been there to witness it. Eames had complained about feeling trapped, about feeling unmotivated, about feeling like he’d grown out of his “music phase.”_

_As it turned out, the others had felt the same way: Yusuf was pissed Eames hadn’t told them earlier, Robert had worked his jaw as he rubbed the bridge of his nose before expressing just how much of his father’s money he had spent on that band. Eames had snapped his guitar in two. Arthur had thought about Yoko Ono.)_

“It’s the last song I’ll ever write,” Eames said. “And it’s for you.”

Eames told Arthur about Dover, about staring out from the cliffs during his three terms of university and squinting, trying to make out the bays of France. Wondering if his future lay there.

It was a clear summer evening, pink and rosy, and, in the distance, the white cliffs of Dover glistened.

“That’s our past, now, though, and that’s what the song is about,” Eames said as he pointed across the sea. “Our present is here,” Eames looked down at their feet. “And our future is wherever we want it to be.”

Arthur nodded.

“We are forever changing,” He said. Picked up Eames hand and held it in both of his. “Who you and I are right now is different to who we will be next year, and I want to grow with you. It’s you who I want to see change into new people.”

Eames softened. “As long as you’ll still love me,” he turned Arthur’s hands over, cradled.

“Always,” Arthur smiled. “Always.”

\---------

Over the course of Eames’ 27 years on Earth, one of the things that he had found that seemed to be a pressing, life-threatening, reoccurring danger was the fact that things tended to go well until they didn’t.

Arthur and Eames woke up on the couch in a tangle of limbs the next morning to the sound of James screaming.

They must have passed out there after their walk on the beach. Eames yawned as he attempted to unwind himself from Arthur’s torso.

“Fuck,” Arthur said, rubbing his eyes. “Aren’t the parents up yet?”

It was easy to assume, of course, then, that something terrible hadn’t happened. The scream wasn’t just a harbinger. It could be that Mal had had a little too much wine the previous night and slept in. That Dom was in the shower, or tending to Philippa. It wasn’t like a crow had crashed into the window.

Dom made himself known, though, thudding down the stairs wide eyed with James held close to his chest.

“Have you guys seen Mal?”

There were rocks, running down to the ocean. A man-made ledge to keep the swell of the sea from taking the railway lines – parallel to the shore – from their shackles, wrenching the metal up like it was made of rubber, rerouting the train into the ocean forever.

They found her body on the rocks below the cliff face.

“Jesus, Mal!” Dom’s voice caught in the wind as he scrabbled down to reach her. Her eyes were wide open. Glassy. Empty. The ocean roared, the tide ebbing away, as if to say – _look what I did_. Eames pulled James and Philippa back so they wouldn’t see.

“Let’s go home,” Eames said to them, voice cracking. Arthur stayed. Stared, slack jawed, after Dom.

Arthur was the one who called the emergency services.

Eames was told that when the police and ambulance arrived, Dom was holding Mal’s body like he could bring her shattered bones back together. Like time would turn back, like she would gasp back to life in his arms, like they’d be in freefall together over the side of the cliff.

Arthur sat in the kitchen, clutching his arms whilst the police talked to Dom. Eames called Mal’s parents and supervised the kids in another room until they arrived.

“I’ve got words for you,” Stephen Miles said as he got out of the car, barging towards where Eames and Dom stood in the doorway as Philippa surged forwards to meet her grandfather.

“Can we not,” Eames interrupted. Blood rushed in his ears. “For the kids’ sake?”

“Where is she?”

“They took her away already,” Dom said. His voice was flat. Eames took James inside and rested his hand on Arthur’s trembling shoulder.

The police left. Dom was told not to leave town. Eames helped pack up the car so Mal’s parents could take the kids home with them.

“Just for now,” Dom had told Phillipa, tucking her hair behind her ear as Eames installed James’ car seat.

“Be brave for me,” Dom continued, and Eames knew he’d see tears in the man’s eyes if he looked back.

\---------

Eames found Arthur in Mal and Dom’s room, staring out the window. Past the washing line, clean clothes waving in the breeze, out to sea. A train rushed by, and the ground shook for a moment.

“It’s the same view,” Arthur said. Eames came to stand next to him.

“It shouldn’t be the same without her,” he continued. “It just shouldn’t.”

The room was the same too. One of Mal’s shirts – a boat necked striped tee, elegant yet homely – was draped over the back of a wicker chair. Dom’s dress shirts hung in the wardrobe, the door just ajar enough to make out the patterns of them. A Jackson Pollock print was up on the wall across from the bed, all red and pink, the amalgamation of both of their tastes. The sheets of the bed were still messy, and on the dressers stood framed pictures of their kids, a box of tissues, Mal’s asthma inhaler, loose change. And then – something else, there, a square of folded paper, a lipstick kiss pressed to it.

Eames picked it up, read it, and his blood ran cold.

“Arthur,” Eames swallowed, and Arthur looked back to him. “Read this.”

“I –” Arthur looked from the note in Eames hand to Eames’ eyes, and he looked like a scared eighteen-year-old boy again. “Is this what I think it is?”

Eames shook his head, like he didn’t know, but deep down he did. A suicide note. A statement of intent. Sealed with a kiss, like it didn’t matter. Like there were no consequences.

Arthur began to read out loud. _“You’re waiting for a train…”_

\----------

They found Dom buckling up a briefcase in the living room.

“This was on her nightstand,” Arthur said, after a pause, handing Dom the note.

He hardly reacted as he read the note. Eames was hardly surprised. Arthur shook his head.

“I have to tell you both something,” Dom breathed. Hardly aloud. “And you’ll have to suspend your disbelief.”

Dreamshare. The PASIV machine. Exploring the layers. Living for fifty years in limbo. Arthur stopped shaking his head after five minutes and instead sat with his arms crossed tight to his stomach. Eames let his gaze fly between Dom and Arthur, listening and then seeing for a reaction.

Dom finished what he had to say with a grand statement, as if to add insult to injury.

“I’m running. I’m leaving the country,” he said, and Eames breathed in sharply. The air was still, and Dom swallowed. He’d opened up the briefcase – the _PASIV machine_ – to demonstrate what he was saying was true, and as the stillness went on, Dom turned to pack it up.

“This was your fault,” Arthur said, finally. Dom spun back to face him. Arthur stood up. “Your fucking fault.”

“Now, Arth –”

“No, Dom. You don’t get to run away here. You don’t get to pack up and pretend you didn’t kill someone.” His voice rose. “This isn’t something that goes away with time. You can’t run from your conscience.”

“So come with me,” Dom said. “Both of you.”

Eames met Arthur’s eyes with his own, a silent conversation. Telepathy. The conversation they’d had on the rocks last night played on.

“There are plenty of jobs in dreamshare,” Dom added, and wasn’t that the ticket. Going back into a life of crime.

_“Our future is wherever we want it to be,”_ Eames had said, and he’d meant it. But whether their future was chasing Mal’s legacy, or if it was patching up what they could in Calais – that wasn’t Eames’ choice anymore. Eames had made it clear that he’d come back to Arthur for a reason. That he’d follow him anywhere. And that wasn’t about to stop now. This was Arthur’s life. His dead childhood best friend. His career. His sense of normalcy. His flight home back to New York still booked for next month.

So, Eames asked himself, as he studied Arthur’s face, what would the love of his life choose? Was he ever told not to stay in one place too long? And, now, with the weight of all the rocks in the ocean on his shoulders – would he have the stamina to keep running?

“Okay.” Arthur said. “Okay, Dom.”

***

Written notes slowly became archaic. Arthur and Eames would soon become a unit, working with Dom in his dreamsharing jobs, ArthurAndEames when they dreamt together, and they were together so often that there was no need for anything further afield than texting.

The texts could range from reminders to shopping lists to the location of meeting after a dangerous job. And as Eames’ phone buzzed, he knew this message would be the latter.

_“Equator. March 10 th. I’ll see you there.”_ The screen blinked, and Eames put his cigarette out on the balcony railing.

It was a humid, mid-summer evening in Panama City, and as Eames watched over the city from his hotel, the lights in each building began to flicker on.

_I miss you,_ Eames wanted to text back, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t safe. One of the few things that made Eames wish he’d never become a criminal – again – was the times when Arthur and he were apart. This time, it had been their biggest job yet. Inception.

Eames hadn’t talked to Dom since they got off the plane, but he figured this was it. Dom’s reconciliation. Mal lived on in their hearts, and in their dreams, but from here on out it was less likely she’d be there to shoot Arthur in the kneecap, or Eames in the head. It was over, and Dom was out of the game. Headed back to his family, to pick up where he left off. A mess of a man, a mess of a situation, but it didn’t matter anymore.

Arthur had decided he wanted to keep going forward. And Eames had decided to go with him. Without question.

There was that one line from Mal’s suicide note that still lingered in Eames’ head, and he thought about it as his train into Ecuador pulled up at the station. It was even warmer than the day before, the height of summer raging above their heads, all humidity and dark grey clouds looming.

_‘You know where you hope this train will take you,”_ the note had said, _‘But you can’t know for sure.”_

Weather wasn’t an indicator of the future to Eames anymore. An ill omen, or a sign of things to come. He didn’t gaze out the window as the train began to move. He just twisted his totem around and around in his hands.

It started to rain, though, and Eames listened to it thudding against the window, the train approaching its destination and that same thread of nerves untangling itself in his stomach. When he stood to disembark, the people around him gripped their umbrellas. Eames only had a single suitcase to hold on to.

He was soaked the second he stepped out of the train station. It was that kind of big, pearly rain that drenches you, warm like you’re swimming through the air and plenty enough that it drenched Eames, head to toe.

People breezed around, heads down, hoods up. Rush hour, the middle of a surprise shower – ideal conditions for meeting after a particularly dangerous job, but not ideal conditions for actually finding one another. Maybe that was why Eames stood, dripping, squinting at the unresponsive touchscreen on his phone and wondering why Arthur wasn’t replying to his texts.

_‘Said you’d meet me here,_ ’ Eames typed it out, but didn’t send it. Let the cool feeling of the breeze on his damp clothes echo through him. The way his fringe stuck to his forehead.

When Arthur appeared – and of course he did – he was dressed in the most perfectly fitting suit Eames had ever seen, and had his brows pulled together tightly. He pushed through the crowds, PASIV in hand, and when he made eye contact with Eames, just for a second, everything stood still. Like tunnel vision. The weapon focus effect.

“The – the train was late,” Arthur began, just a little out of breath, as he got closer. Trying to excuse himself. For what? He was there, and to Eames that was all that mattered anymore.

“Kiss me, you fool,” Eames grinned, and Arthur smiled and stepped into his space, and they reached out and held one another and the PASIV bumped against Eames’ leg, and Arthur’s lips met his, and it was like the tide hitting the sea wall. Like a seagull dashing its brains against a cliff face.

Like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at rightearring, or on the You're Waiting For a Train discord server. I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
